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Home > Preconception > Quitting Smoking During Pregnancy Isn't Easy: The Great American Smokeout Can Help

Quitting Smoking During Pregnancy Isn't Easy: The Great American Smokeout Can Help

by Erica Loop on November 16, 2012

Erica Loop

About the Author

Erica Loop is the mom to one energetic son, as well as an arts educator and freelance writer. She enjoys visiting museums, crafts, and taking karate classes with her 10-year-old. Erica has written articles on children&#8217;s activities, education, crafts, and interior design for websites and companies such as education.com, eHow, Bounty Paper Towels, and Pampers.

About the Blog

WhatToExpect.com supports Word of Mom as a place to share stories and highlight the many perspectives and experiences of pregnancy and parenting. However, the opinions expressed in this section are those of individual writers and do not reflect the views of Heidi Murkoff of the What to Expect brand.

November 15, 2012 marked the 37th annual American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. Quitting smoking was something that I never thought that I would do. Likewise many expectant, or thinking about becoming expectant, moms are in the same boat. The American Cancer Society uses this day to get their message out (as if you didn't know it -- smoking is dangerous to your, your unborn baby and your children's health) and urges every smoker to either quit or make a plan to quit. According to the American Cancer Society 80 percent of lung cancer deaths, and 30 percent of all cancer deaths, come from smokers and tobacco users. This means that roughly 443,000 people die prematurely each year from tobacco related causes. If those stats aren't enough to make you want to quit, read on to see if my own smoking story resonates with you.

I had my first cigarette at 14-years-old behind the local mini-mart with my two best friends. I didn't inhale and spent the following hour washing my hands with toothpaste because one of my friends insisted that was the only way to get the smell out. Flash forward to two years later and I was smoking at least half a pack a day. By the time that I was in college I was a one pack a day smoker -- sometimes more, depending on if I was out friends, stressed from finals or just really, really bored. While I was basically healthy, I knew that smoking was certainly not doing anything to make me feel better. I got winded easily, had almost no sense of smell and couldn't go an hour without craving a cigarette.

By my mid-20's I was working in a preschool, and had decided that stinking like an ashtray around little kids just wasn't the right thing to do. I was also somewhat trying to get pregnant, at least my husband and I weren't doing anything to prevent it from happening, and knew that smoking was one of the worst things that I could do in the event that I did become an expectant mom. When the day finally came that the pregnancy test had those two pink lines, smoked my last cigarette. I remember feeling sad and thinking that it was going to be the hardest thing that I ever had to do.

While the first week was almost unbearable, by the second week of not smoking morning sickness set in. Although I wouldn't wish all day long morning sickness on my worst enemy, it made it easy to quit smoking. After that, I never looked back. It's been over 11 years since I had my last cigarette and I know that I will never, ever pick one up again.

Are your pregnant and quitting smoking? What methods to quit work for you?